Why should Immoral people change?

reply to post by logical7

I think you'l agree with worshipping God if i explain it better, say a bird is created by God and it sings beautifully, then thats its worship by using the talent God gave it to make the world beautiful.

Birds "sing" or "caw" because that's how they communicate to one another. People find birdsong lovely - and sometimes beautiful. So is whale-song.

"Worship" is not an action that a bird partakes in by "singing beautifully."

We can absolutely be "awed" by the universe and all things it contains, how it behaves, and so forth and so on....
that doesn't mean we can really UNDERSTAND IT - which is my concept of "God" - a Force which created what we see around us. God is not 'understandable'. My objection is giving God a gender at all, or human feelings such as "wrath" and "vanity", in "needing to be worshipped" or becoming violent...
which is tyranny. It is NOT love.

You aren't ever going to convince me that your thinking is "true" and mine is "false." So please, feel free to continue explaining yourself, and I'll read along. But don't try to convert me. And I guess you might as well stop trying to understand me, too.

Not
Gonna
Happen.

And no, my views are NOT atheistic. "Awe" is not "worship."
And threatening brutality for failure to "worship" is not "merciful" - it is a human (particularly male, but not always) attribute. Making "God" into a male tyrant is the problem. "God" in my mind, has no gender, values everyone and every thing equally, and doesn't give a CRAP what you eat, or what you wear, when you fast, how well you memorized the oral tradition of the Quran, whether you walk clockwise or counter-clockwise around the Kabba, or if you sleep with people outside of marrage. Doesn't care what you "think" or which "book" you are reading. WE WILL ALL GET THERE.
Near death experiences have increased enormously due to technology; people are coming back from the brink. And they all say the same thing - there is something after this. Most people are changed forever when they realize this.
Yes, some people "see fearful images." The vast majority report being contacted by ethereal forces and finding themselves in a dimension that makes this one look pale and lame in comparison, a spectacular dimension with overwhelming Love, Acceptance, Forgiveness, and peace.

The only thing that matters is LOVE and CARE and RESPECT for this planet and ALL the living things on it. THAT is the only thing that needs to be taught. And a person does NOT need a religion for those things to be in their personality, nor to have a NDE that indicate that an afterlife does exist. Why does it exist? We don't know, we don't know how it got there, how long it's been there. We don't know if 'time' is really real, and we don't know how WE got here - we have five meager senses and an awareness that we WILL die. Other species have different senses and we don't know if they are aware of death eventually approaching - but they do grieve the loss of their companions and friends no matter what "species" the departed was.

That's all. Bookmark this post if you like. I'm not inclined to repeat it all again.
(You have to pay attention if you want to come to these meetings. )

reply to post by wildtimes


well yes God is not Understandable and so we can't say anything about God, UNLESS God choses to let us have some knowledge by some kind of communication/revelation. No?
The gender issue is not a big deal, its limitation of language not giving a gender to God.

You are breaking you own idea about God when you say God doesn't care what we eat, wear, sleep with etc, just say that you don't know.

My view,
yes it does not affect God in anyway but it affects our body, spirituality and society and God knows much better than our limited understanding. Even a TV comes with an instruction manual, you think we were created with limited understanding to grope around with our short sighted vision and not get help or guidance from the Creator?
Your idea is if given enough time everyone will figure it all out without help and you also say that we are a tiny blip unable to comprehend the whole picture and your solution is that enough tries will do it!

The simplest logic says that if a Creator made us and we are incapable to understand it all owing to our very limitations then the Creator should teach us more, than just showing signs of Its existence.
It would be like you tying a blindfold on your baby's eyes and sitting in a room with arms outstretched and silent and watch the baby bump around. Fall and cry and you refuse to call to at least give the baby some direction by sound.
Thats not LOVE, its illogical and very CRUEL!!

Originally posted by logical7
well yes God is not Understandable and so we can't say anything about God, UNLESS God choses to let us have some knowledge by some kind of communication/revelation.

... and many of those that have claimed a direct link with God and claim to be speaking his 'revelations or communications' have been frauds. They've done more damage to people than can be measured. Not everyone who says "God's angel appeared to me in a cave and said _________" is telling the truth. And considering that they all contradict each other and contradict the historical documentation of the Gospels .. I'd say the vast majority of people who claim direct communication with God and try to gain followers ... are FRAUDS.

reply to post by FlyersFan

and contradict the historical documentation of the Gospels

how does Gospel become an authentic source about God? For all i know it was compiled by an agenda holding group and was fought over for and the powerful won and it served the rulers to rule the subjects better by having a catholic(universal) church and anyone challenging the belief and destroying harmony was persecuted!

reply to post by logical7

the Creator should teach us more

Now you're deciding what God "should" do?
You are a real piece of work.

Parents who ignore their child are CRAP PARENTS. Parents who threaten their children with "brutality" and "eternal punishment" for transgressions (known or unknown) are CRAP PARENTS as well. They are slaveholders, not parents.

Since "God" seems very much to be an absent parent, but (in your mind and billions of others) is some magically "all-knowing score-keeper", and punitive tyrant, then God is not a "parent." We have PARENTS to do the parenting. That is what is expected - that is why we have sexual organs and produce babies. To learn, and to parent them with love.

People bitch and moan about "Big Brother (government) watching us", or having their homes bugged and their communications hijacked, about surveillance of activities, words, phone discussions, posts on the internet. But they're 'cool' and 'trusting' with "the Big Daddy" doing it? Preposterous. It's a ridiculous double-standard.

Yes, apparently "God" did create us to stumble around in the dark and find our own way - because "God" isn't HERE, TELLING US ANYTHING. The books are not "instruction manuals" - they are opinions and reflections, written down by men. Only other people are telling us. Hence we have many lifetimes to go through, stumbling toward the light. Trying to get home. We get there, but don't know enough yet, so it's time to go back to "undergraduate" school and go again.

And I don't presume to know what "God" should do; how arrogant that you do!!

reply to post by logical7

how does Gospel become an authentic source about God? For all i know it was compiled by an agenda holding group and was fought over for and the powerful won and it served the rulers to rule the subjects better by having a catholic(universal) church and anyone challenging the belief and destroying harmony was persecuted!

And...
that's different from you believing the Qu'ran.......HOW?
How does 'Qur'an' trump the Gospels?
"For all [we] know it was compiled by an agenda holding group ......&&&&"

You're a bigot, then. Right?
Is that correct?

You think all non-Muslims are doomed? Evil sinners? Corrupted of all morals?

I am currently reading Jeremy Scahill's book "Dirty Wars" and learning a whole lot about what happened after about 1990 ---
I've also read 'The Looming Tower' - another bestseller.

This whole situation is a MESS!! And we civilians just need to encourage our 'leaders' to BACK OFF! Stand down!!!
Let things play out without interference!!!!!!!!!

I am no backer of "Israel" OR of the "American industrial-military empire".
:shk:
We have to engage in DIALOGUE to get past this.

NEITHER FAITH has a monopoly on the truth. Yet BOTH engage in warfare and bloodshed.
But...but.....
"Which is correct?"

NEITHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
gha

reply to post by wildtimes

How does 'Qur'an' trump the Gospels?

I already tried that earlier in this thread... Pointless because he doesn't have an answer...

Apparently the gospels are not correct about his life, and what he said... yet a book written 600 some odd years later is correct because it is a revelation from God...

Ye know... as opposed to words from a man that actually knew God...

That's logic for ya...

reply to post by Akragon


Incredibly frustrating.

reply to post by wildtimes

How does 'Qur'an' trump the Gospels? "For all [we] know it was compiled by an agenda holding group ......&&&&" You're a bigot, then. Right? Is that correct?

you can judge me but if you read history, what the Qur'an says was against all the groups present at the time of its revealation. Against the polytheist pagans, against Jews who rejected Jesus pbuh as prophet and Messiah, against Christians who considered him god, all of them equally or more better than the tiny group of muslims in warfare. Yes muslims had an agenda to get exterminated
What the Gospels says is aimed at pleasing the new emerging christians and the pagan romans alike, a hybrid of judaic monotheism and roman paganism/polytheism. It was then backed by the Roman empire and the sects who had muslim like beliefs like the Ebionites were made extinct!
So Akragon the ideas in Qur'an 600yrs later about Jesus pbuh were not new, they were present in people during his time too, they were just silenced, Now if you believe that its the powerful majority who always has the TRUTH then all the best

Originally posted by logical7
For all i know it was compiled by an agenda holding group

You just described the Qu'ran and Muhammad.

The gospels are first hand accounts. They were written at the time of the events.
Take them or leave them.
The Qu'ran was written by a known thief and murderer with a political power agenda.
And it was written 600+ years AFTER the events of the gospels.
So it's not like they could possibly be a reliable source of information. Not a chance.


So back to the subject .... why should immoral people change?
Again ... it's impossible to say what is 'moral' and from God for sure
so no one should have to change to fit another persons version of morality.

In Iran, it's 'moral' for women to have to cover their heads and not to show their toes in sandals. The men running that country are just as sure that they are doing what is morally right, as I am sure that what they are doing is morally wrong.

I find Logicals calls for Sharia law to be immoral. He probably finds my calling it immoral to be immoral. I'm VERY sure Sharia is immoral. He is probably very sure it's not.

Answer ... live and let live and stop trying to push **your absurd version of 'morality' on to others.

** by 'you' I mean people in general .. not anyone in particular.

Originally posted by wildtimes
Parents who ignore their child are CRAP PARENTS.

ATS Thread - Is god a deadbeat dad?
You might like this ...

Originally posted by logical7
What the Gospels says is aimed at pleasing the new emerging christians and the pagan romans alike,:

The gospels pleased almost no one. They were extreme and different and hard for the people to hear. MANY rejected them ... both Jewish and Roman. The gospels did away with many of the Jewish practices which ticked off the Jews and they showed that the Romans were wrong which ticked off the Romans. Those that clung to the gospels usually ended up murdered and/or persecuted. So no .... the gospels were not aimed at pleasing people. They were extreme in their truth and hard to accept.

The gospels were written by people who knew Jesus and who knew His mother (Luke). They are first hand accounts of the events in the life of Jesus. Any police department in this country will tell you that during an investigation, the witness' of the event are the ones who can tell you what happened (the apostles).. not a bunch of people who try to re-tell the story hundreds of years later (muhammad).

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by wildtimes

 

How does 'Qur'an' trump the Gospels?

I already tried that earlier in this thread... Pointless because he doesn't have an answer...

Apparently the gospels are not correct about his life, and what he said... yet a book written 600 some odd years later is correct because it is a revelation from God...

Ye know... as opposed to words from a man that actually knew God...

That's logic for ya...

The answer is simple, read the Qur'an and then Judge it.

The idea of Jesus pbuh that you have is more similar to the one in Qur'an than the paul influenced Gospels anyway.

When you believe that Jesus pbuh can come thousands of years later than Moses pbuh to confirm the law and explain its essence, why not another man after 600years to confirm and correct the previous scriptures?

So if you were a Jew, you would be having the same arguement against Jesus pbuh, (i know you are not christian)

you only know about one prophet and think that only he is good enough to follow, i know about many prophets from Qur'an and they are all good and with many lessons to be learnt from their lives, they are not like their image in OT but if you actually don't want to know them in a better light then its your choice.

Logic says that God would always send good messengers to guide people throughout human history not just one good one at one time and thats it!!
This is logic for ya..

reply to post by logical7

you can judge me but if you read history, what the Qur'an says was against all the groups present at the time of its revealation.

I'm not "judging" you. I'm reflecting what you say while I try to 'communicate with YOU' (as you bade me do), and giving you feedback.

You don't have a monopoly on the truth, logical. You just don't. And Muhammed never wrote anything down. Therefore, ALL of the Abrahamic scriptures, including Muhammed's "revelation" remain suspect and always will be.

reply to post by logical7

Logic says that God would always send good messengers to guide people throughout human history not just one good one at one time and thats it!!

And maybe I, or maybe Akragon, are two of those messengers! We get new members on here all the time saying, "I am in touch with above" or "I'm in contact with the angels" - are they all to be believed?

NDEs are FAR more evidence than dusty 'revelations', and as science improves, we are learning more about things that were once completely mystifying - when science successfully proves that things that were once thought to be 'signs from God' are predictable weather anomalies or climate change or natural phenomenon, it debunks ancient 'assumptions' and 'decisions' about what is going on around us.
THAT is logic.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Just finished reading the OP.
EXCELLENT JOB! star/flag...
thanks for pointing me to it.

In this past year I have read (when my eyes would allow it) tons of books on this subject. Books and literature from every perspective. From fundamentalist Christian to Catholic to Buddhist to Hindu to Native American Indian to Jewish to Athiest etc etc etc My answer to the question of ‘Is God a dead beat dad’ is … I still have no freak’n idea.

Me neither, and I've been reading stuff about NDEs and reincarnation for 20 years, as well as history of 'religious beliefs' and 'superstitions' over the centuries...still no clear answers. Dammit.

Living life is like being tossed into a board game without anyone in charge REALLY explaining why you are there; what the rules of the game are; or what the objective of the game is in order to win. It kinda sucks not knowing for sure what is going on.

Yeah. That ^^^^

(I’m going through the 5 stages, as you all can probably tell)

Of grief/disillusionment, you mean? Or spiritual growth...?

P.S. For the record .. my personal belief system is a mishmash of Catholic and Hindu with some Buddhist frosting. Rather tasty!

We are SO alike in many ways of thinking. I can't claim the 'Catholic" part, though. More Unitarian Universalist, I guess. Add in Native American and Celtic shamanic beliefs - They're startingly wonderful as a garnish! Even better as a side-dish!

reply to post by logical7

The answer is simple, read the Qur'an and then Judge it.

The idea of Jesus pbuh that you have is more similar to the one in Qur'an than the paul influenced Gospels anyway.

When you believe that Jesus pbuh can come thousands of years later than Moses pbuh to confirm the law and explain its essence, why not another man after 600years to confirm and correct the previous scriptures?

That doesn't make any sense...

1. IF Paul influenced the Gospels you'd find his lessons within the pages of the texts... but you don't. Paul taught an entirely different doctrine...

2. Why would I read a book that apparently had different teachings then Jesus 600 years after his death... when I can read about him in books that are within 100 years of his death?

3. Jesus didn't confirm the laws of moses... he Changed them, and did away with many of them...

Moses had 613 laws... Jesus had 2...

When he said not one jot will be done away with within the law... HE meant the two commandments... NOT the 613 like many Christians falsely believe...

NO that isn't logic... that is nonsense

reply to post by Akragon

Why would I read a book that apparently had different teachings then Jesus

you say that because you are from Canada. If you were from ME and a jew you would be probably have the same arguement against Gospel.

You should read because its highly unlikely that you were placed at a place where you got all the truth needed.
Qur'an encourages me to read Gospels and i do, gospel discourages you from reading anything after it.

A truth is not afraid.

What do you think will happen if you read Qur'an?

reply to post by logical7

You should read because its highly unlikely that you were placed at a place where you got all the truth needed.

Oh. But you being placed among a minority group in overcrowded, filthy, violent modern-day India (which was where Jesus plausibly 'disappeared to' during his early years and learned his stuff, and to where he returned after his recovery - having a death sentence on his head) makes you 'specially' knowledgeable?

You have more access to the truth? It's one of your own countrymen that I reference when I speak of Jesus's recovery and retirement in Kashmir. Have you studied the work of Fida Hasnnain? Do you even know who he is? He is a highly decorated and regarded Sufi mystic and teacher - WITH WHOM I AGREE in many ideas, based on his expertise.

He's a Muslim, and I agree with and appreciate what work he has done.

I suggest you look into what HE has come up with before claiming that YOU know the truth by virtue of where you were born. (Which none of us but you know, here, because you won't TELL US). "India" is pretty vague. So is "Canada" or "the USA" or "the Middle East". They are all enormous, with local and ethnic and linguistic and belief differences. sheesh.

That's so lame.
The holy books are available world-wide. ALL of the existing Holy books. I own several of them. How many do you own? How many have you read? 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead"? Bagavad Gita? The Vedic texts? What 'version' of the Bible do you read? For that matter, what is your native language?

You do a fair job at English, but it lacks - and you've admitted it's not perfect. We see that with your semantic arguments quite often here. Awe vs worship, for example.

reply to post by logical7


Just a comment here.
You seem to find it very easy to back-pedal when you are stuck in the debate.

For example, telling me, "We all know your views, you don't have to keep repeating them" - and then you turn right around and say, "Honestly, I don't understand your views."

Secondly, you find it convenient to use 'ad hominem' strategies by blaming someone's 'ignorance' (in YOUR OPINION) on their location, or the 'religion' to which they were first exposed. NONE OF THAT applies with educated people, logical, and it only makes you look desperate to keep up.

You keep TELLIING us what we think, but turn around and, when ASKED what YOU think, instead of explaining, say "we are judging you." It can't be both! You have told me SO MANY TIMES what I 'think' based on what you choose to read and how you 'interpret' it. But then say "communicate with ME, not the image you have of me in your miind!"

Do you see the mixed message there? You even think you know what God 'should' do. You think you know what we ALL 'should do.' Suggestions for reading are one thing. Active listening, questioning, and clear communication do not encompass JUDGING. Saying you "know" what I think and then telling me you "don't know" what I think are not consistent.

That's a large part of why you're losing points in this debate about morals. I think many of us would be willing to come to a compromise of 'common denominator' beliefs here, but you are fighting it tooth and nail with your constant duplicity.

You are improving, though, I'll give you that.